Generally, a college trumpets the news when it is declared in the Top 20 of anything. The exception: When Tulane University was ranked 20th for the number of students -- 163, as of June -- who had signed up for seekingarrangement.com, a five-year-old website that pairs young "Sugar Babies" with "Sugar Daddies" and "Sugar Mommies" who are generally older and definitely well-heeled.

View full sizeThe website seekingarrangement.com pairs young 'Sugar Babies' with 'Sugar Daddies' and 'Sugar Mommies,' who are generally older and definitely well-heeled. More than 150 Tulane University students are counted among the 'Sugar Babies.'

"These are men and women who are looking for someone wealthy to pamper them," said 41-year-old Brandon Wade, the site's founder and chief executive officer.

The Top 20 list came to light locally last month when The Hullabaloo, Tulane's student newspaper, published an interview with a freshman identified as Amanda who said Sugar Daddies had helped her meet her expenses at Tulane, where tuition and fees alone for first-year students amount to $43,434.

Interest peaked for a time on campus, with some professors imploring their students to pick up a copy of the story for class discussions.

But selling sex is not a new issue on college campuses, said Mimi Schippers, an associate professor of sociology who specializes in gender and sexuality issues. The article, however, does illuminate some new wrinkles.

"I think it's a sign that working in the sex industry is less stigmatized," said Schippers, who has had former students talk to her about working as strippers.

"No student has ever talked in class about any illegal sex work," she said, "but given that that industry is more lucrative than working for minimum wage or waiting tables, it has always been a viable economic option for college students."

Wade, the website founder, insists that the site isn't a den of prostitution and that it bans people with that in mind. "This is not an escorting site," he said. "This is a place where people can find wealthy boyfriends."

However, according to the student interviewed in The Hullabaloo, sex is "generally implied" by the second date. She also said she contracted a sexually transmitted disease as a result of her liaisons.

Tulane's official reaction to the claims in the article was decidedly negative. In a statement, the university questioned the accuracy of the statistics, saying they are provided by a website seeking to promote itself.

Moreover, the university said, "we certainly discourage any student from taking part in such an arrangement given the obvious dangers."

The buzz the story created didn't last long, students said.

When it spread through the Greek system, several sorority members expressed their willingness to offer informal counseling to any fellow student who felt she had no other choice to make ends meet, said Cara Fonseca, a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma.

"There are other options," she said.

Other students were more pragmatic about it, said Lea Bogner, the chairwoman of Outreach Tulane, an annual community-service event that involves about 1,000 volunteers.

"A lot of people feel that tuition is high and people need to do whatever they can to afford coming here," she said.

Of Tulane's 13,376 students, about three-fourths receive some form of financial aid, spokesman Mike Strecker said. The average aid package for a first-year student this year is $33,176 -- about 59 percent of the university's estimate of the total cost for a year at the school.

Wade said that the cost of college is a reason many young people sign up.

"It's difficult to get a loan," he said, "and tuition has been rising much faster than the cost-of-living adjustments."

According to Wade, New York University, where the undergraduate tuition and fees amount to $41,656, has the most Sugar Babies with 498. Harvard, arguably the country's most prestigious university, places ninth with 231, and the University of California, Berkeley, occupies 13th place with 193.

The proportion of college students among the site's 900,000 members has stayed constant at about 35 percent, Wade said.

Site organizers reached that estimate, he said, by counting the number of participants whose email addresses end in ".edu," the suffix that denotes an educational institution, as well as those members who mention school affiliations in their online profiles or in email messages.

The minimum age to sign up is 18, Wade said. Although the site relies on honest reporting when participants list their birthdates, it will start background checks within a month to ensure minors aren't joining, he said.